


Little Mirrors

by Corvid_Knight



Series: Demonstuck [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Adoption, Blood, Death, Demonstuck, Gen, mild injury of a kid, my tumblr is knight-of-heart-and-art
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-08 08:30:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14690319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corvid_Knight/pseuds/Corvid_Knight
Summary: D and Bro make an unexpected discovery in a demon's lair. (Set about fifteen years before the beginning of Demon Eyes.)





	Little Mirrors

Okay, you've found a lot of weird things in demon lairs, but this takes the goddamn cake. It's jarring enough that for the moment after you shove the door open, you just kind of stand there and stare at the room, until Bro gets impatient and nudges you forward enough to get a look himself. 

"Alright, what the _fuck_?" You don't have to look at him; it's possible to read his bewilderment from his voice. 

"No clue what the fuck." 

"Did we get reports of stolen kids or something?" 

"Nope." But that doesn't change the fact that this is a kids' room. Nursery? Yeah, maybe. And it's not just a room that happened to be tricked out as a nursery when the demons you two killed took this place over—the shit in here looks new, the small bed's obviously been slept in, there's a mobile spinning above the crib. 

There's also a body on the floor, but that's not all that surprising. The guy looks human and there's the same mark on his forehead as all the thralls you fought downstairs; odds are he either killed himself when you killed his controller or that the demon's death was enough of a shock to kill him. 

Collateral damage. It fucking sucks. 

You remind yourself that at least you've prevented any more poor assholes from getting enthralled by this particular demon, and stop looking at the corpse just as Bro steps past you to nudge the dead guy's shoulder with the tip of his katana. "Dude, quit that." 

"You got something better for me to do, D?" He looks up with the bare ghost of a smile, raising an eyebrow. "Gotta make sure he's dead, right?" 

"If you stab the dead body I swear to fuck I'm going to smack you." 

"Pussy."

"Fuck you." That gets a chuckle out of him as he sheathes his sword again, kicking the dead guy and surveying the room for a moment. When he bends down to look under the bed, you have to ask. "The fuck are you doing?" 

Bro shakes his head. You know he's rolling his eyes behind his shades. "C'mon, big bro. Kid's room, dead babysitter, no kids. Maybe he killed them, but then where's the bodies?" 

"Good point." So the kid (kids?) are probably hiding somewhere. 

Huh. 

Okay, where would a kid hide? Like, a normal kid who hadn't been trained on exactly how to hide and maybe ambush whoever's looking for them, because if it was you as a six-year-old you woulda been right behind the door with a knife. Since neither you nor Derrick are bleeding, that's obviously not what's going on. 

So...

Wait, you actually know this. Duh. 

Bro glances over at you as you head for the closet and pull the slatted door open. And yeah, you're right—the kid inside gasps and flinches back, hugging the bundle in his arms up to his chest as he stares up at you. 

Holy shit. 

Orange eyes and golden-blond hair. It's enough to make you glance back at Bro, just for the extra comparison. 

Then you dismiss the whole _how the fuck did they make a copy of my brother_ thing for the moment and squat down to bring yourself down to the little boy's eye level, slipping your shades off. "Hey, kiddo. You all right?" 

He makes a soft, startled noise when he sees your eyes, glancing down at the bundle—the baby—he's holding. The glimpse you get of wispy white hair pretty much confirms that the baby's like you, just like the kid's like your brother. What the fuck? 

"My name's D," you tell him. 

For a second you don't think you're gonna get an answer. Then, very quietly, "Dirk." And he nods at the baby, shifting his grip in a way that makes you slightly nervous. "Dave." 

"Shit," Bro mumbles. You hadn't realized he was right behind you. "How the fuck did this shit happen?" 

"I mean, I feel like you should be less surprised than me. You're the one who sleeps around." 

"Like you don't." He huffs and smacks the back of your head, more-or-less gently. "That's not _my_ kid." 

"Technically—" 

"Fuck technicalities. I didn't knock anybody up." 

"Yeah, yeah." You sit back on your heels and look at the kid—Dirk—for another second, then glance up at your bro. "Magic shit? God knows we've both lost enough blood for somebody to collect some of it and use it to make—" 

"Living voodoo dolls." His mouth twists in annoyance. 

"I dunno; they look human. And this demon had a thing for playing with life magic and humans, so..." You shrug and hold out your arms. After a second, Dirk steps forward and deposits the baby in them. 

Derrick watches as you cradle the baby, looking down into those bright red eyes. 

Weird to see those on somebody else. 

Dirk yelps in alarm, and you look up as your bro grabs the kid's arm and yanks him all the way out of the closet. Before you actually have a chance to tell him to let go, he pulls one of the knives from his wrist holsters and drags the point across the back of Dirk's hand, bringing up a short trail of blood and a terrified wail from the kid. 

"Fucking _hell,_ Bro!" You shift the baby so you're supporting him with one arm, wrapping the other around Dirk as he presses up against you for protection. (And you adjust the age you were assuming for him down from five or six to three or four. Just big for his age. Which makes sense; there's three years between you and Derrick, in the opposite direction.) 

"He's not dying, D, calm down." Bro doesn't look at you for another minute, just examining his own hand. Then he holds it up and gives you a grin. "If they're supposed to be reflective magic things, it's not working." 

"There's better ways to test it, dumbass! Lalonde coulda ran some actual fuckin' tests, not scared the kid like that!" You scowl up at him, handing up the baby and feeling a stab of amusement at the surprise on his face as he takes it. That frees up both your hands to scoop Dirk up, getting to your feet as the kid unhesitatingly wraps his arms around your neck and leans his head on your shoulder. "C'mon, let's get these guys out of here." 

"How come I get the baby?" 

"Because you scared the other one, idiot. C'mon."

* * *

You've always been the better one at searching through shit. Derrick waits in the truck with the kids, and you go back into the building to dig for info. 

And you find it. A surprising amount of it. Thank god for people and demons who have a documenting fetish. Apparently they wrote down every fucking step of creating those two kids. And the entire reasoning behind it. 

Dave and Dirk are human. They're copies—clones? Magic clones?—of you and Derrick—although you'd figured that part out already. Kinda hard to miss. You were right about them using your blood to make the kids; they got Bro's from one of his run-ins with werewolves, yours from when your stupid ass got grabbed by chaos demons and tortured for a few days. 

You kind of just skip over the parts of the ledger that detail the exact process. Not like you understand the magic notation used here. Plus, from the couple paragraphs you read of it, you're gonna be sick if you try and read through what happened to the women they used as hosts for the babies. 

You're actually flattered that this demon thought that you and your bro were big enough threats to go to all this trouble to kill you. Also _really_ glad that you made the decision to hit this lair now rather than in a couple weeks—if you're reading the notes right, the ritual that would've tied the kids' lifeforce to you and your brother's was set to happen in three days, during the lunar eclipse, the blood moon. 

Woulda meant you all died, if you'd waited. 

...yeah, it's good that you did this now.

You find a spare piece of paper and a pen and write down the birthdates of both kids, do a little math and work out that Dirk's three and a half years and Dave's seven months old. Exact same gap as with you and Derrick, down to the day. Probably down to the hour, minute, fucking second—although you're not sure why Dirk's older than Dave, where you're older than your bro. 

Eh. Not important. 

The records could be pretty fucking dangerous, though, so you dump them in a metal trashcan, haul them out to the parking lot and get the extra can of diesel out of the back of the truck. Not that you really needed it—paper burns pretty well—but it makes the process of torching them faster. Means you're back in the truck sooner. 

Bro gives you a disgruntled look, nodding at the two kids curled up asleep in his lap. "What, I get 'em both now?" 

"Just for the drive back, man." 

Even with that reassurance he still huffs in irritation, but you don't miss how he keeps his arm protectively around Dirk, cradles Dave up to his chest. He's not as pissed about adding two Striders to the roster as he's pretending he is. 

As for you, you think it's cool as fuck that you get a baby brother.


End file.
